Best
Bishakha
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Dear all,
I was waiting
for Urvashi's article to appear before outlining about how Wikipedia
works; Urvashi has explained some of it in her excellent article, which I
have also forwarded to relevant wikipedia lists, tweeted and shared on
FB (so that this can be noted).Adding to her points and trying to anticipate some of your questions, I am structuring 'how wikipedia works' into 10 points for now. All questions welcome.
3)Who are these editors? They're all around the world,
ranging from students to senior citizens, men, women and trans persons.
Unfortunately, we face a gender gap in wikipedia and the vast majority
of editors are men. I've blogged about it here: https://micromag.evidenceandinfluence.org/article/listening-to-the-dogs-of-data-wikipedia-and-the-gender-gap/
Over the last three years, we've been trying to recruit
women to edit Wikipedia. In India, we've organized workshops for women
to edit Wikipedia; globally, many efforts are ongoing. Let me know if
anyone on this list are interested; can organize workshops. Or if you'll
would like to audit some of the pages related to women and suggest
improvements, we can see how this can be done. It would be wonderful if
this list could seriously audit coverage of women in India on wikipedia.
And it's worth it. See how many people have visited just the Bhanwari
Devi page here: http://stats.grok.se/en/latest/Bhanwari_Devi
4)An encyclopedia in which anyone can contribute what they want, anonymously or by name, without any credentials. Is this anarchy? It may seem like it, but it's not. All of us who edit wikipedia are expected follow three basic guidelines:
In addition, each article is usually written in a flat, somewhat bland
style which allows the information to surface, rather than the writing
style.
Where biographies of living people (such as Bhanwari Devi) are concerned, even stricter standards are prescribed to avoid harm to a living subject. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLP
We are using these guidelines while cleaning up the Bhanwari Devi article.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLP
Where biographies of living people (such as Bhanwari Devi) are concerned, even stricter standards are prescribed to avoid harm to a living subject. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLP
We are using these guidelines while cleaning up the Bhanwari Devi article.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLP
5)So references or citations are the key to a good
article, as is the case with academic articles. But what can be
referenced? Not just anything on the net, but credible publications,
research journals, scholarly publications, books etc - whether they
exist online or offline. We can't use a person or institution's own
website as a primary reference, since that may contain promotional
content. We need external references. Sometimes these references are not
easily available; a big challenge for editors. For example, in the
Bhanwari Devi case, I need the original court judgement to cite from it,
but can't find it anywhere. [Help, Kavita Srivastava]
6)So if you have the right references, how do you
actually edit? You click the edit tab on any page at the top right hand.
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhanwari_Devi This will take you to another page, which can look a bit confusing or intimidating, since it has code written on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bhanwari_Devi&action=edit&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro
There is an easier way to edit; using the Edit Beta tab instead, on the top right hand side, which opens an interface which has no visible code. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhanwari_Devi?veaction=edit Easiest way to try is to correct a spelling mistake or something like that, which is considered a minor edit. Follow the policies from point 4 to make more complex edits.
There is an easier way to edit; using the Edit Beta tab instead, on the top right hand side, which opens an interface which has no visible code. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhanwari_Devi?veaction=edit Easiest way to try is to correct a spelling mistake or something like that, which is considered a minor edit. Follow the policies from point 4 to make more complex edits.
7)Can you edit anonymously? Yes. If you do not open an account to edit (like one does on Facebook or twitter), your internet protocol address gets recorded. If you do open an account, you can choose a username (mine is bishdatta) and you can create a user page, like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bishdatta
Other editors can then communicate with you on your 'user talk page'. For example, mine is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Bishdatta
They can help you learn how to edit, hold your hand,
collaborate with you on an article, let you know about workshops and
meetings etc.
8)What if you spot a mistake or a
problem in the article? Best thing to do is to leave a comment on the
talk age of that article. Click tab called Talk on top left hand side of
article. For example, in Bhanwari Devi's case, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bhanwari_Devi
That will alert other editors. Alternately, contact a wikipedia editor
you know and explain the problem; he or she will help if it violates
wikipedia's guidelines (as this one clearly did).
9)Does this model really work? Yes, but any open knowledge model has inherent challenges. As a volunteer-managed site which is huge, it is a perennial work in progress; for example, English wikipedia alone has 4.5 million pages. So errors which creep in, such as the Bhanwari Devi one (which is a very significant and problematic one) only get fixed when these are spotted and someone volunteers to fix them.
9)Does this model really work? Yes, but any open knowledge model has inherent challenges. As a volunteer-managed site which is huge, it is a perennial work in progress; for example, English wikipedia alone has 4.5 million pages. So errors which creep in, such as the Bhanwari Devi one (which is a very significant and problematic one) only get fixed when these are spotted and someone volunteers to fix them.
10)But doesn't this kind of 'unvetted' system result in
articles of low quality? Not necessarily. But each article is a work in
progress until there are enough editors with enough time to improve
these. We also have volunteers who routinely patrol articles, including
new pages and remove rubbish, but it is not a perfect system. We need
more volunteers to constantly keep improving this.
The best articles are called Featured
Articles, which is the highest-quality rating for a wikipedia article.
Each article that reaches this status has to go through peer reviews
etc, and is featured on the home page daily. Today's featured article is
here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
If you click and open it, you will see it is a
well-researched article on Cyclone Joy. This is what we would like every
article to get to, but many don't make it to this level, since it takes
a lot of time and effort.
All questions welcome.Best
Bishakha